Telephone call processing and switching systems are, at the time of the present patent application, relatively sophisticated, computerized systems, and development and introduction of new systems continues. Much information on the nature of such hardware and software is available in a number of publications accessible to the present inventors and to those with skill in the art in general. For this reason, much minute detail of known systems is not reproduced here, as to do so may obscure the facts of the invention.
At the time of filing the present patent application there continues to be remarkable growth in telephone-based information systems. Recently emerging examples are telemarketing operations and technical support operations, among many others, which have grown apace with development and marketing of, for example, sophisticated computer equipment. More traditional are systems for serving customers of large insurance companies and the like. In some cases organizations develop and maintain their own telephony operations with purchased or leased equipment, and in many other cases, companies are outsourcing such operations to firms that specialize in such services.
A large technical support operation serves as a good example in this specification of the kind of applications of telephone equipment and functions to which the present invention pertains and applies, and a technical support organization will be used from time to time in the current specification for example purposes. Such a technical support system, as well as other such systems, typically has a country-wide or even world-wide matrix of call centers for serving customer's needs. Such call center operations are more and more a common practice to provide redundancy and decentralization. However, the components of the present specification can apply to a single call center as well.
In a call center, a relatively large number of agents handle telephone communication with callers. Each agent is typically assigned to a telephone connected to a central switch, which is in turn connected by one or more trunk lines to a publicly-switched telephone network (PSTN), well-known in the art. The central switch may be one of several types, as known in the art.
An organization having one or more call centers for serving customers typically provides one or more telephone numbers to the public or to their customer base, or both, that may be used to reach the service. The number or numbers may be published on product packaging, in advertisements, in user manuals, in computerized help files, and the like. There are basically two scenarios. If the organization providing the service has a single call center, the number will be to the call center, and all further routing to an agent will be at the call center. If there are several call centers, the organization may provide several numbers, one for each call center, and the customer may be expected to use the number for the closest center, or for the center advertised to provide specifically the service he or she might need. In some cases the number provided will connect the caller with a first Service Control Point (SCP) which is adapted to pre-process incoming calls and forward the calls to other call centers.
Routing of calls, then, may be on several levels. Pre-routing may be done at SCPs and further routing may be, and almost always is, accomplished at individual call centers. As described above, a call center typically involves a central switch, which may be, for example, an Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), Private Branch Exchange (PBX), or a public-switched telephone network (PSTN) switch. The central switch is connected to the PSTN network, well-known in the art. Agents, trained (hopefully) to handle customer service, man telephones connected to the central switch. This arrangement is known in the art as Customer Premises Equipment (CPE).
The processes of incorporating computer enhancement to telephone switches is known in the art as Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), and the hardware used is referred to as CTI equipment. Such equipment includes processors, routers, servers and the like. It is this processor that provides the CTI enhancement for the call center.
More recently, call centers have been enabled to handle data network telephony (DNT). DNT equipped centers operate similarly to conventional CIT centers in function although the operations such as routing calls, switching lines, queuing calls, and so on, are performed digitally with digital equipment rather than with an analog requirement. In DNT, calls are received at each agent's computer terminal or DNT communication device. For the purpose of this specification, a CTI system will most often be referred to when describing elements of the present invention although they will apply to DNT as well.
In a CTI system telephone stations connected to the central switch may be equipped also with computer terminals, so agents manning such stations may have access to stored data as well as being linked to incoming callers by a telephone connection. Such stations may be interconnected in a network by any one of several known network protocols, with one or more servers also connected to the network one or more of which may also be connected to a processor providing CTI enhancement, also connected to the central switch of the call center.
Typically, call centers are manned by agents connected by telephone and trained to handle certain problems experienced by customers such as questions regarding complicated installations of software and so on. Another instance might be a large sales network wherein the agent is trained to take customer orders and the like. Generally, agents who are employed to operate in such a call center work on site and must log-in and be counted present so that calls can be routed to that particular agent.
In typical call center operations agents are primarily engaged in handling incoming calls from persons seeking services provided by the call center. This is not, however, the only task agents handle. In many instances there is a need for agents to make outgoing calls. An agent, for example, in interaction with a calling party, may need to research some item of information, then place a call back to the original caller. In other instances the primary function of the call center may be agent-initiated calls (sales, marketing for example). In any case, there are often reasons for agents taking part in calls originated at the call center, in addition to their other duties.
In the operation of call centers wherein calls are placed from the call center, it is known in the art to make such calls by an automatic outbound dialing system, wherein calls placed by the dialing system are answered by clients and then transferred quickly to available agents.
In most call centers, as previously described, an automatic dialer within the call center handles outbound dialing functions for the agents. In those call-centers wherein outbound calls are more prevalent, sufficient outbound channels (phone lines) must be provided to the call center so that the outbound dialer has enough channels available to keep every agent busy handling connected calls.
Because outbound dialing is automatic and a significant number of outbound calls will result in failure to connect to a real person, the hit ratio is always less than 1. If one automatically dialed outbound call is answered by a real person for every two calls made, for example, the hit ratio is 0.5.
The outbound dialer must have access to a sufficient number of channels so that connected calls may be transmitted to agents in a manner so as to keep them fairly engaged in taking calls. Therefore, at least two lines dedicated to placing outbound calls by the automatic dialer would be needed if the hit ratio is 0.5.
The outbound channels used by the automatic dialer at a customer's premise have to be assigned, leased lines. The cost, then, for the sponsor of the call center, in terms of payment for total lines, can be very significant.
In order to avoid the extra expense related to extra lines required for outbound dialing, many companies prefer to limit outbound dialing capability as much as possible. However, many businesses cannot do this as outbound calls may be key to their success. Very little has been done in the art at the time of the present application, however, to efficiently manage agent activity in handling outbound calls.
What is clearly needed is a method and apparatus wherein outbound calls can be made in automated fashion from an automatic dialing system at network level, transparent to the agent, and calls connected can be distributed efficiently among available agents. An outbound dialer such as this would require only one dedicated channel per agent at a call center, thus significantly reducing cost related to the leasing of extra lines.